High Jinx Read online

  When she’d finally managed to turn the hefty key in the rusty padlock and wrench the shed door open, she’d been appalled to see the wheelchair sitting in front of them, glinting almost aggressively at her in the shaft of sunlight illuminating it. Morris, of course, had smirked and told her she must have been mistaken. And she was sure if she hadn’t stomped off in the most massive strop he might have gone so far as to give her a piece of his mind. Bah! Either way, she had been made a laughing stock.

  Gunn sat on her sofa, staring unseeingly at the tube of her portable black and white television and thought that this really was the straw to break the camel’s back. This time she would get revenge. Slater and Latiffe had better watch their slim, young backs she resolved, for she, Mrs Patricia Gunn, was not going to take this final breach of her erstwhile unblemished authority lying down. Oh no. She was going to be looking out for them, make no mistake.

  ‘One day,’ whispered Mrs Gunn to herself, spittle squeezing out the corner of her dry mouth and drooling down her whiskery chin, ‘they’re bound to slip up. And I will be waiting.’

  Jinx unscrewed the safety catch on her double-glazed window and giggled to herself as it swung wide open. The whole process had taken less than two minutes – whichever cowboy had put these in should be taken outside, blindfolded and made to take his chances with the scary security man’s lion-sized Alsatian.

  Jinx, who spent an inordinate amount of time daydreaming up new reality TV formats, was jolted out of her Man Fights Dog: Who Wins? reverie as Liberty came crashing through the door, clutching handfuls of wispy tops, her face so sparkly it looked like she’d come off worst in a fight with a giant glitter machine.

  Liberty dumped the twinkling mound of fabric on Jinx’s bed, gestured vaguely towards it and began rummaging through Jinx’s dirty laundry basket.

  ‘Liberty! That’s all dirty. Leave it alone for God’s sake – why don’t you wear one of these?’ Despite having been best friends with Liberty for years, Jinx never failed to be impressed by her pal’s seemingly limitless wardrobe. Jinx held up a shimmering grey vest covered in tiny sequins and checked the label. ‘Stella fucking McCartney? Jesus, Lib, you’ve kept this one quiet. It’s gorgeous.’

  Liberty was busy applying the remains of Jinx’s Frizz-Ease to the ends of her long – and always absolutely frizz free – dark locks. ‘Oh, Dad bought it for me in Riyadh last year. I’ve never worn it. You have it if you like.’

  Jinx also never failed to be amazed that Liberty’s terrifying father, despite his massive and oft-professed devotion to Islam, would buy these clothes for his daughter; not seeming to see anything incongruous in the fact that the majority of the girls who bought bags and bags full of stuff from the smart parades of designer shops staffed exclusively by men were forced to hide them underneath an oppressive burkha. Liberty loved her dad, but went home to Riyadh as little as possible. She spent most weekends and half terms with Jinx, and usually accompanied the Slater family on holiday.

  The Slaters loved Liberty. The first time she’d come to stay, two weeks after the girls had started at Stagmount on their first official exeat weekend, Caroline and Martin had warmed to the beautiful and charming girl who offered to help clear up after their characteristically huge Sunday roast, but had to be shown how to load and operate the dishwasher first.

  And Liberty loved the Slaters. She’d never really experienced family life like it. At her dad’s house in Riyadh, there were too many servants to mention; a veritable army of people to wash, cook, clean, drive, garden, everything.

  At Jinx’s rambling house in the Hampshire countryside there were dogs, cats, brothers, sisters and numerous friends and relatives constantly dropping in to join the jostle for space and attention. Whatever it was it certainly wasn’t quiet, but the noise seemed to affirm the place’s inherent warmth.

  The chintzy sofas thick with dog and cat hair, the colourful, threadbare rugs that covered the red stone of the kitchen floor and the almost too hot to touch Aga were truly a world away from the white lines and black marble floors of the oppressively silent mansion on the outskirts of the oppressively silent city of Riyadh.

  Liberty looked stunning in the glittery Stella McCartney top – which Jinx insisted she wear – above indigo Levi’s and bright-white trainers, and the pair grinned at each other’s self-satisfied reflections in Jinx’s dirty mirror as they simultaneously applied a last minute slick of lip-gloss.

  ‘How is your dad, Lib?’ Jinx asked as she blotted her lips with a tissue. ‘You’ve hardly told me anything about your holidays.’

  ‘Much the same – I do love him but you know what he’s like,’ Liberty sighed as she carefully drew a fine line of glittery silver eye shadow underneath her lower lashes. ‘We were getting on fine until he caught me waxing my bikini line by the pool.’

  ‘What?’ Jinx burst out laughing. ‘Why the hell were you doing it by the pool? What’s wrong with using the bloody bathroom? I bet the poor man had the shock of his life.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it was a hot day and I didn’t want to miss any rays. And if anyone had the shock of their life it was me, when he came running round the corner ranting and raving and shaking his fist about “common prostitutes”, all that “you’re no daughter of mine” crap and his boring bloody stuck record stuff about taking me away from Stagmount.’

  ‘But …’ Jinx was always shocked by the things Liberty’s dad said to her. She knew damn well that whatever she might do wrong – and there was plenty – her dad would never call her stuff like that.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Liberty groaned, ‘he refused to speak to me for two weeks and wouldn’t let me out of the house. Not that there’s anywhere to go there anyway, but it totally sucked. Anyway, he’s over it now and I can’t be bothered to think about it – I want to have fun tonight. Let’s go!’

  As Jinx returned the screwdriver to her tuck box and put the tiny window screws in the pink ceramic pot on her desk for safekeeping – although she liked to go out illegally, she didn’t much fancy anyone uninvited getting in the same way – Liberty balanced precariously on the windowsill before lowering herself the couple of feet to the cigarette-butt-strewn grass below. God, the fight they’d put up to get these rooms had been so, so worth it.

  Liberty was rooting in the depths of her tan Mulberry Roxanne bag for her mobile phone as Jinx carefully placed her battered copy of The Handmaid’s Tale – set texts did have their uses – between the window and the frame, before turning off the strip light and swinging her legs over to join her pal.

  She hated that light – made the place look like a bloody prison cell. Not that she’d ever been in either a prison or a cell you understand, but she was an avid reader of the Sun’s crime pages and now considered herself an expert on all aspects of incarceration at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. She’d tried draping a sarong over it, but it had caught fire and Mr Morris, Stagmount’s geography teacher and head of the lower sixth form house, had begged Jinx to leave it be.

  She and Liberty liked Mr Morris a great deal, all the girls did. He was an incorrigible old flirt who encouraged them to call him ‘Brian’, but he let them smoke in his garage so long as they swept up the butts on a weekly basis, and allowed his girls to keep alcohol – wine and beer, only girls! – in their rooms.

  Best of all, as far as house rules were concerned, he was remarkably laissez-faire about them tripping off into Brighton every evening so long as they were back by 10.30 p.m. in the week, and 11.30 at weekends. Which, considering most of the pubs they loved shut at this time anyway, was more than reasonable of old Brian and certainly left the girls well disposed towards him and therefore less inclined to break the rules.

  Apart from tonight of course. But as far as Jinx and Liberty were concerned, it was a rule that just the two of them go out – illegally – in the first week of term, and this bore no reflection on Mr M or his relatively easy to keep rules. Indeed, if all went to plan, and there was no reason to think it would not, he would be none the w
iser.

  Liberty was still rummaging about as the two began walking round the back of the white painted lower sixth house and towards the perimeter fence. A muffled ‘Yesss’ escaped Liberty’s lips as her right hand emerged from the bag clutching her perennially elusive mobile.

  As always, Liberty waited until they were halfway across the dark lacrosse pitch closest to the road before ringing for a taxi. Also as always, where these late night escapades were concerned, she asked that the driver meet them just outside the school’s huge ornate main gates.

  They bent low to the ground as they traversed the side of the hockey pitch closest to the real world, but stood up straight again as they reached the cover of the line of wind-bent trees that shielded their progress from any prying eyes watching from the school.

  The escapees grinned smugly and gave each other a congratulatory high five as they clocked freedom, waiting patiently in his familiar green and white striped car like the benign fifth member of Dürer’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

  The driver winked at the girls in his rear-view mirror as he asked them where they wanted to go. Brighton taxi drivers were used to picking up Stagmount’s finest at odd times and places, and would no sooner squeal on their charges than they would change lanes without indicating.

  Hell, they should be used to ferrying the girls about. They’d been at it since 1865, when the formidable Tanner sisters had founded Stagmount. Whilst education for upper- and middle-class boys in the nineteenth century was seen as a passport to success in public and professional life, girls were educated for the drawing room, if at all. In one of the earliest feminist experiments, these three bluestockings intended their charges to have the same educational opportunities as boys, and it was still going strong.

  Huge oil portraits of the three hung in the imposing library; wherever you stood or sat in that grand, oak-panelled room it was absolutely guaranteed that at least one pair of those ancient eyes would be fixed upon you. You couldn’t help but be impressed by their drive and determination – those ladies were clearly of the less chat, more action school of thought and by God, they’d done it.

  David Bowie’s ‘Changes’, Jinx and Liberty’s totally number one favourite song, was booming out of the cabbie’s car stereo, and the girls asked him to turn it up and sang along as they drove along the white stuccoed seafront towards the Sea Life Centre and the start of the Pier.

  After Liberty had dished out such a generous tip the driver’s eyes bulged, they jumped out and joined the throng of tourists, suits from London with their dates and locals pushing through the metal gates. Jinx looked around lovingly. She was obsessed with the Pier. A notice said: ‘Free entry, entertainment and deck chairs: open 365 days a year’. Was there ever a more welcoming sign? Jinx was sold on sight.

  Surely no one, with beer money in their pocket, poppers in their handbag, best friend in tow, and a night of drinking, dancing and laughing ahead of them had ever had a bad time there.

  Plastic pint glasses brimming with lurid-pink sex on the beaches, Jinx and Liberty settled into a companionable silence on a bench facing Stagmount, intent on slurping up their cheap vodka mixes as quickly as possible. The building loomed out of the cliff face, occasional light twinkling, strangely austere in the dark.

  A gang of spotty, sportswear-sporting lads, shouting, pointing and pushing each other, interrupted their reverential downing.

  ‘Oi, sweetheart!’ shouted one, standing behind his friend and pointing at Jinx. ‘Wanna sit on my face?’

  Christ, what an invitation! Please do excuse me whilst I strip off right here, right now, delighted by this obviously not to be missed, once in a bloody lifetime opportunity.

  ‘Why?’ she drawled, in her very best I-am-ever-so-bored-by-you voice. ‘Is your nose bigger than your dick?’

  Liberty creased up, spraying a mouthful of pink sticky drink in front of her in an impressive arc.

  Whilst his mates jeered and laughed the lad looked like his parade had been well and truly golden showered on, and not in a good way. ‘That’s fucking gratitude for you,’ he sneered. ‘Ugly slags.’

  Jinx tilted her head to one side. ‘I’m confused,’ she said, arching a disbelieving eyebrow. ‘I am supposed to be grateful to you for what, exactly?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Liberty joined in, ‘and how come you want her to sit on your face if she’s so ugly?’

  ‘Ugly fat SLAGS!’ chanted Prince Charming, failing to see any incongruities and warming to his theme. ‘Ugly fat POSH SLAGS!’

  ‘Much as it saddens me to leave such fine conversationalists,’ Jinx said to Liberty, ‘I feel we’ve wasted quite enough time on these cretinous fuckwits. WKD Blue, sweetie?’

  The boys melted away as the pair stood up, linked arms and headed towards the fairground, but they were only hiding round the other side of the sheltered seats.

  ‘LESBIANS!’ came the insightful parting shot. ‘DYKES! RUG-MUNCHERS!’

  ‘Why is it, Lib,’ asked Jinx, genuinely perplexed, ‘that guys who think it’s perfectly OK to shout out unasked for sexual invitations can’t take it when – pretty fucking reasonably – the invitee declines their kind offer, only to fall back on the ugly slag thing?’

  ‘I mean, it’s pretty fucking obvious they don’t think I’m ugly or they wouldn’t have asked for it in the first place,’ Jinx shook her head, ‘and it’s also pretty fucking obvious – because I said no – that I’m not a slag either.’

  ‘I dunno, Jinx,’ said Liberty, eyeing up the rollercoasters. ‘Fancy a go on the Crazy Mouse?’

  The enforced separation of the long summer holiday combined with flying through the air at high speeds having consumed buckets of cheap vodka is a potent mix, and Liberty and Jinx’s heads were spinning as they crunched their way from the edge of the promenade across the pebbles and down to the waterfront.

  Jinx stuck out a leg to trip her up, and Liberty shrieked and collapsed on to the stony beach close to the water’s edge. Jinx landed on top of her. Despite being almost the middle of September, the air was warm and the girls lay where they fell, squealing and shoving each other like pigs at a trough, mobiles, jumpers and handbags strewn around them. Summer was clinging on to Brighton with all her might, and these two could not be more delighted with her efforts.

  Burrowed into a stony hollow becoming exponentially enlarged with each bout of energetic giggling, Jinx lay with her head on Liberty’s stomach, facing the midnight blue and white expanse of softly gurgling sea.

  ‘Hey,’ Liberty sat bolt upright, knocking Jinx’s head unceremoniously from its comfy pillow on to the sharp beach below. ‘I can’t believe I forgot to tell you – guess what I’ve got!’

  Jinx, who’d found herself suddenly eyeballing some particularly gritty stones without any introduction whatsoever, raised a jaded eyebrow.

  ‘The freaking disco biscuits, that’s what!’ Liberty had her pale-green Chanel wallet out of her bag and open before Jinx had a chance to right herself.

  ‘Here, chuck us that vodka lemon J–’ Liberty removed a pink, heart-shaped pill from a tiny plastic ziplock bag, popped it in her mouth, took a great glug from the proffered bottle and swallowed masterfully.

  She held out the remaining E, before jumping up and down triumphantly as Jinx necked hers. ‘I can’t believe I forgot them – remembering forgotten drugs is, like, the best thing ever!’

  ‘Liberty Latiffe … I knew there was some reason we were best friends for ever,’ said a properly impressed Jinx. ‘Well done, angel, but where the hell did you get them from? You’ve been in Riyadh all summer, and I’d bet a whole lot of money these discos did not come from there …’ She paused, a look of sudden horror on her face. ‘Please – please – tell me you didn’t get them out there and bring them back with you.’

  Jinx couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was about Liberty’s dad that bothered her, as Amir Latiffe had always been the perfect gentleman where she was concerned. He frequently sent stunning Persian carpets, mag
nums of vintage Krug and tins of delicious Beluga caviar to Caroline and Martin Slater, accompanied by beautifully handwritten thank you notes on stiff Smythson cards for their hospitality towards his eldest daughter.

  Whenever he was in London on business – thankfully, this was pretty infrequent – he would hire the Harrods helicopter to fly him to Stagmount and then whisk Liberty, and invariably Jinx, off to amazing places. On Liberty’s birthday in the first year he’d flown them to Cornwall and back in a day, and in the second year he’d taken them to the George V in Paris for dinner.

  Liberty loved her dad and Jinx loved Liberty, but for all his largesse – in fact, partly because of it – Jinx knew he was not the same as her dad. She also knew instinctively, for this was one topic that her and Liberty had never discussed, that the second he became disillusioned by Stagmount or – worse, much worse – disappointed in his daughter, Liberty would be gone, no questions asked. And once gone, Jinx had a terrible feeling she would never get her back.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot all your life, Jinx.’ Liberty staggered to her feet and started pulling off her jeans. ‘I got ’em from Dad’s new driver – Raoul – on the way back to school from the airport. We had a great chat about house music, and he is proper fit too. Come on, we’ve got to have one last swim of the summer.’

  Jinx frowned as Liberty peeled off her pink glittery socks and stuck one in each toe of her bright-white trainers. Jinx couldn’t work out whether Liberty’s bravado in the face of Islam and her dad was stupidity or denial. Either way, she didn’t much fancy her chances if she had to go head to head with the man on anything.

  After all, Sofia, Liberty’s mum, had never stood a chance. Jinx had heard this story many times, yet it seemed so alien to her she still sometimes felt it couldn’t be really true.

  Sofia and Amir met and fell in love whilst on the same MBA course at Harvard in the eighties. They got married in the States, and Sofia told Liberty she was conceived under an American flag quilt in a hammock at a wild house party in Martha’s Vineyard. According to Sofia, who was Persian but had mostly grown up in the States thanks to her dad’s job with the UN, the pair of them had been absolutely head over heels, passionately, wholeheartedly, madly in love.